A Look At The Presidential Field

Florida and Super Tuesday are on the horizon, and the last GOP debate is over.I think it's time we took a look at what's out there, presidentially speaking.

As you know, I haven't endorsed anyone for president as of yet, nor will I now, although I've definitely let some preferences slip from time to time.

Simply speaking, I tend to look at the selection of a president differently than a lot of people. The way I see it, what we are doing here essentially is hiring a chief executive, keeping in mind the specific situation we happen to be faced with at present.

In that context, I'm not particularly interested in `likeability'. soundbites, race, religion or gender or anyone's personal life except as it might impact on their actual ability to perform.Of course, that puts me almost 180 degrees apart from the tabloidized dinosaur media, and probably a good portion of the electorate.

So, just for the hell of it, let's examine our job applicants based on my criterion, and forget about the other fluff, shall we?

The first thing I think we should look at is our current situation and what qualities we are likely to need to cope with it.

The first thing that occurs to me is that we are going to need someone experienced in crisis management, with the ability to make quick and hard decisions and implement them.

This is not a situation for on the job training. The Oval Office has a history of either expanding a man to fit the position or being severe in revealing his limitations, and given the circumstances, we have less leeway than usual this time in allowing for growth.

The financial markets are in turmoil and the economy is in need of some severe and expert tweaking, while the unfinished foreign policy issues left over by the current occupant of the White House are going to need to be dealt with. The challenge of Russia, energy, the Iran nuclear situation and the issue of domestic and foreign Islamist terrorism are not going to go away. Nor is the problem of our open borders and illegal aliens.

In addition, our new president is going to have the responsibility of restoring confidence in the presidency by uniting the country, exercising consistency in implementing policy, and in coherently and honestly explaining those policies to the American people. When our new president takes office, he or she will have to do his best to dispose of a 16 year legacy in the opposite direction.

I don't wish to seem partisan, but there is absolutely no one running as a Democrat right now who is remotely capable of dealing with these challenges, either in terms of experience or basic character. I wish that wasn't the case, but it unfortunately is.

Neither Senator Clinton or Senator Obama have the slightest executive experience in running anything, let alone something as complex as a national government. Neither of them have ever even run so much as a small business, which is probably why both of them are so antithetical to entrepreneurs and corporations in general. And both have a number of quite questionable people around them and supporting them.

Both of them favor huge tax increases `on the rich' with the definition of whom qualifies as `rich' being a fairly elastic one, and neither has shown the slightest flair or understanding of the way the US economy works, or for the kind of economic management necessary to make it work. Clinton and Obama's grandiose and costly plans for government paid and managed universal healthcare and schemes to penalize the already crippled mortgage industry and make a bad situation worse are just two examples among many others of what I can only call muddle headed thinking on the economy.

Nor can either one of them be seen as particularly decisive, or willing to make hard decisions when the moment calls for it. Mrs. Clinton, like her husband, is known for tacking to whatever wind blows to her political advantage at the moment and has a well-deserved reputation for political expediency at the expense of principle, or even at the expense of what one would ordinarily term common sense. Obama, as his rivals for the Democratic nomination correctly pointed out at the last debate is so anxious to avoid going on record in his positions that he voted `present' over two hundred times during his still uncompleted senate term! Aside fromspeeches loaded with platitudes and easy applause lines, there's simply not much there.

On foreign policy and national security, both candidates agree on open borders, a reduced military and a US surrender in Iraq. And both are essentially selling a return to the good old days of Clinton era and a vacation from history...and I think we've already seen where that leads.

If we look at the Republicans, we at least get a bit more substance, if nothing like perfection.

The current front runner if the polls are to be believed is John McCain. The senator from Arizona definitely has executive experience, of the life and death kind. And his personal courage is beyond question.

By his own admission, he knows very little about economics, and had he had his way on tax cuts, the nation would be in far worse straits economically than it is today. And his record on national security issues is a mixed bag - good on the military and on Iraq, abysmal on our open borders.

Significantly, he's tacking right on the border issue now. Whether I trust his new conversion is another matter entirely.

In a strange sort of way McCain is heading back towards the future, as it were - revisiting his past of thirty years ago as a conservative, war veteran Reaganite legislator. And that's really his message,the way I see it:here I stand, the old warhorse....you know me, and I will take things back to the way they used to be.

It is not the most unattractive of messages, either. I find myself disagreeing with John McCain's stance on a number of issues, but I respect the fact that he stands for the old values and I like the fact that he is not a baby boomer, having avoided the malignant narcissism of that generation.

Like his chief rival in the GOP, Mitt Romney, he may be the least worse in a field where the choices remain unclear so far...at best.

Mitt Romney likewise certainly has stellar credentials when it comes to executive experience, and unlike McCain, he understands economics, which is why he's now making that the linchpin of his campaign. He's seen which way the wind is blowing with the electorate. Romney has shifted his positions to the right as well, something I personally don't have a problem with since we all change our minds, but in his case I can't help but wonder about his sincerity. I don't wish to be harsh, but Romney sometimes reminds me of another `bidness' Republican who ran as a conservative and then ended up betraying both the principles and the constituency he espoused when it was expedient. That man ended up in the White House, but he tore his own party to pieces, and cost them majorities in both houses of Congress while alienating most of the people who put him in office.

And it's no accident the way I see it that Romney has Jeb Bush and a lot of the old Bush team working with him on his campaign. I saw that coming when Romney made his speech on faith from the George HW Bush Library in Texas and was introduced by the ex-president personally.

Romney likewise is selling character, and he wears it well, but at times he seems so perfectly scripted that it makes the rare occasion when he stumbles outside the script loom that much bigger.

Romney's essential message is one of competence and of newness, of a personality outside of the beltway, and it's certainly not the least compelling narrative out there.

Mike Huckabee, on the other hand really is an outsider.He has at least some executive experience as governor of a small state, and a wonderful ability to communicate and think on his feet...as president, he'd be the closest thing we've ever had to a standup comedian in the White House since Abe Lincoln and his speeches have a unique way of hitting home, a talent he honed as a Baptist preacher.

He's recieved a great deal of criticism as a `liberal' because of some parts of his record in Arkansas, but now claims to have seen the light on issues like taxes and the border, and I see no reason why his conversion should be considered any less genuine than McCain's or Romney's.

He's also an avowed and unapologetic Evangelical Christian, who's even popped into the pulpit to preach a sermon now and then on the campaign trail, something I personally find rather appealing.

But that's also his chief drawback for a lot of people. A lot of the Republican elite have a habit of regarding Evangelicals like rich people have always regarded the `help'- useful to have around when needed, but better unseen and unheard when you don't.Others,who consider themselves more moderate are concerned by the idea of having a candidate so closely identified with that part of the GOP and consider him unelectable.

Huckabee, of course, fed this by deliberately injecting identity politics into the race, the first time that's been done on the Republican side for quite some time.The fact that he was willing to do this so blatantly gives one pause for thought. One key question for Mike Huckabee if he stays in the race is whether he has the ability to move beyond that.Time will tell.

Rudy Giuliani would seem, at first glance to be the ideal candidate for the job. A solid record of accomplishment as a executive (and remember, being mayor of New York City is more than equivalent to being governor of all but the largest and most populous states) and his success in turning around a dysfunctional city against all odds was a solid accomplishment. His personal courage, as shown by his actions as a federal prosecutor taking on the mafia and as mayor during 9/11 is also not in doubt.

He has solid national security credentials and arguably the best team of foreign policy advisors of any candidate in either party. He has never wavered from conservative fiscal policies, has sound economic ideas and his ability to communicate with his fellow Americans is only rivaled by Mike Huckabee among the candidates.He's also the candidate most likely to successfully challenge the Islamist penetration into our society - just ask CAIR.

Where America's Mayor seems to have stumbled is in his judgement of the electorate.While avoiding the early states and conserving time and resources for the bigger states may have seemed like a smart campaign strategy on paper, the message it sent to the electorate was that Giuliani was afraid to compete. To the citizens of the states affected, it sent a message that they didn't count, something that fit the stereotype of the elitist, snobby New Yorker.That will continue to be true no matter how well he does in Florida and on Super Tuesday.

Another error, I'm convinced was his continued emphasis on 9/11 and national security. Now that things are going better in Iraq and the Bush administration has essentially chosen to pass the problem of Iran on to the next president with the farcical NIE, the American people are much more concerned with bread and butter issues like the economy than they are with national security. Mitt Romney was able to read the wind and change accordingly. Rudy Giuliani was not.

Those aren't the only errors in judgement that cost Rudy Giuliani his frontrunner status, but I think they are symbolic of a slew of other things that did, and call into question whether he's really the right man for the job.Again, time will tell.

One of those errors in judgement is one he shares with the entire Republican field, in my opinion.The GOP candidate with the courage and foresight to run against President Bush in the way Nicholas Sarkozy ran against Jacque Chirac, politely but firmly, is the candidate most likely to succeed, both in the primaries and in the general election.

It remains to be seen whether any of the Republican candidates will take that challenge, and whether events intervene to change things, as they have a way of doing.